


Little Piece of Eternity

by zhovel



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Around that time period, Cheating, DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION NOW, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, i have no concept of time up to the year i was ten, inspired by a streetcar named desire, lovers to disappearing for twenty years to lovers to mutual pining to lovers, mr tennessee williams i hope you are pleased with this, set in the 1950s??? i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-03-06 19:19:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18857443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhovel/pseuds/zhovel
Summary: Phil Lester is finally content in a new life. He has a wife and a house now, and he just wants to forget his past - the war; and before that, the boy who broke his heart and the person whom Phil had spent decades searching for.And yet, somehow, the ghosts in his head find a way to come back to life. Because the doorbell rings, and Phil opens the door to find Dan Howell standing there.





	1. Chapter 1

This time when the doorbell rings, his wife refuses to get up at all.

“They do it to get a rise out of you, you know,” Phil says. The sky outside is grey. His shirt is not. And the woman in front of him has gentle laugh-lines in the corners of her eyes; and yet Phil doesn’t want to count them at night because his brain slips back to giving numbers to his betrayals if he counts one. Two. Three. Fou-

“It’s your turn anyway.”

“Annah, please.”

It tastes like candy, sometimes when he says her name. And sometimes, it’s more of a trigger that he steps on intentionally, just to remind himself.

Phil doesn’t like to reminisce about anything before Annah. Every time he does, it’s a slippery slope that he can never claw his way back from, not properly at least.

He pushes back the thoughts now, instead, he makes himself think about the first time he had met Annah. Even after all those years, thinking about the way she took him under her wing was a thrill.

 _There’s still something queer about the way you live_ , his wife had said, _You’re not effeminate._ Phil doesn’t know if that’s the something that drew her to him, somehow; but she’s good. She doesn’t mind his quirkiness the way that the other women do (and with a shudder, Phil remembers the first woman he’d tried to court -- that didn’t end well. She had thrown the bouquet in his face and the thorns had stung him). It was the greatest gift. It was the greatest burden.

She tells him that he’s as good to her as she is to him. _You don’t treat me like other men do_ , she told him. And Phil’s thinking now, that maybe she likes the way he just treats her like a man. No, like a person. He’s soft.

“It’s the boys in the neighbourhood,” she says. “It’s just a game.”

They look at each other, a silent battle of wills. A game. Their game. Routine by now -- Dinner, wash their Sunday best, watch some telly until the doorbell rings; sometimes once but often several times in a row, and then either one of them will open it to nothingness. The middle-class life wasn’t exactly what he’d imagined when he was younger, and the person by his side -- not quite the same person, either.

But it’s fine. Phil’s okay.

This part of town was a nice place to live, if you had children. He and Annah had tried and failed, but the miscarriages she had weren’t enough for their family. So now it was just them, and the pounding of footsteps down the street. It wears his patience thin sometimes, but they can’t afford to move, not right now when his wage is just enough for them to live a comfortable life.

(And sometimes, when Annah’s asleep, Phil drifts down to the living room and sits there, thinking about carving a new life for them in a foreign place. There’s nothing stopping him but memories.

Phil’s not good about memories. The ghosts linger. The ghost, it lingers.)

He shakes the thought away.

“Philip?”

Phil lets a grimace and gets up. “Fine,” he says, and shuffles to the door.

He creaks the door open, making sure that he sighs loud enough for Annah to hear, just to make her smile. There wouldn’t be anyone here anyway. The boys in their neighbourhood are loud and annoying, but even they weren’t stupid enough to be caught ding dong ditching.

There wasn’t supposed to be anything here.

And yet, right on their doorstep, stood someone. On their doorstep.

Phil looks up and actually meets the man’s eyes, and-

Remembers.

He remembers, and because of this, he doesn’t know how to breathe anymore. The air is sucked out of his chest in a swooping punch to his system, and Phil _swears_ that he blacks out for a second. Because that’s- that’s the-

“Hello,” the man says. Phil can’t help but gawp at him. “Am I in the right place?”

His voice is achingly familiar, the kind that drags at your bones and makes your joints ache and your mind hyper-aware of the map he had traced and left behind on your body, long ago, when nothing mattered.

Phil’s transported back in time. That’s the ghost that haunts his dreams, that’s- he’s _here_. In the flesh.

His eyes flit across the man’s face. Eyebags. A fitted waistcoat. Hands that Phil can never, ever forget, not ever since he brushed his lips across their knuckles. And the taste of tears on his lips, the wind rushing through his hair and blowing all the candles out. Time and wishes and the stars above their heads. Stolen kisses, stolen breaths, stolen time snatched right underneath their noses. Phil would’ve given the world for this man; and now -- now, it’s too late.

He inhales, opens his mouth and tries to say something, but his heart is pounding so hard that Phil doesn’t trust himself to speak without choking on the words. His legs are shaking, they can both see it.

“Phil?” the man says. Phil can see his fingers tighten on the suitcase he’s holding, just a brief lapse of self-control.

Phil manages to tilt his head forward at the man questioningly.

“It’s me.” The man steps forward. Phil takes a step back. “It’s- It’s Dan. I’ve come- home, like I said I would. Before. I promised.”

 _I know_ , Phil thinks. _I’d know you anywhere._

Phil can’t vocalise this. He can’t tell Dan about the hours he had stayed up thinking about him, he can’t shape that selfishness into existence and still manage to keep both of them afloat. 

He doesn’t have to know this Dan. He remembers.

But now they’re caught in the intrinsic dance of the real world and Phil doesn’t remember the moves. He was weightless, before. Dan had taken him by the hand and showed him what it meant to be brave, and it was them against the world, every motion unplanned and yet in sync; but that had ended in a wreck. Dan had tasted like forbidden fruit. Garden of Eden, until the day he left and Phil was sent crashing down to earth in a blaze of forgotten glory. Phil had learned to tether himself to reality, but his mind still floats -- dreaming, wishing, believing.

For the first time since he was twenty, it comes rushing back.

Nothing is okay. Phil can’t vocalise this.

So instead, Phil inches his hand forward until they’re about to touch. They never spoke in words that much, anyway; it was about the give and take and chase for both of them. He knows this game, knows what the anticipation in Dan’s eyes means but he still closes the gap, plays with fire and breathes in the smell of danger, and Phil leans forward, and-

“Honey?”

Phil curses Annah for her existence. And immediately, the guilt floods him so hard for even _thinking_ like that that he twitches away from Dan.

Dan notices. Of course he does, that stupid, intelligent, beautiful fucking man. The blind panic that appeared in his eyes says that he didn’t expect to see Phil here, let alone Phil _and_ a wife.

Dan steps back, tilting his chin up, but Phil can still see the tremble in his lips even as his face hardens into a mask of blankness again. “It seems that I have intruded. I am sorry.” He says, slow and eloquent, the same lilt to his words that made Phil fall in love again and again once upon a time. When things were different.

This man, he knew the system. And suddenly Phil feels out of place, because even after all these years, he still relied on other people. And Dan didn’t have to.

Phil shakes his head warily. “I should have tried harder. It’s me who should be sorry.”

“You tried to find me.”

“Yes.”

“And I wasn’t there.”

Phil looks down. Dan’s shoes are rich polished leather, the craftsmanship making it obnoxiously clear that this was handmade and well taken care of. “You weren’t,” Phil says, the heaviness in his heart growing.

They weren't meant to meet again. Phil had made a new life for himself, the way that Dan reappeared wasn’t fair.

There was a new person in his life. Annah had given up so much to be here with him. And yet, Dan had managed to come back, and the emotions Phil had painstakingly boxed away suddenly sprung back to life, a wildfire that only grew and grew and grew.

Dan, he- He didn’t fit into this suburban life like Annah did. He hadn’t spent the past few years with Phil like his wife had, watching their family crumple and their relatives die and watching the last of her fortune get sucked up by a greedy sibling that had left nothing for her. Dan didn’t understand this, because Dan was old money and Phil was nothing but the person who had managed to lay his grubby hands on precious treasure once.

And yet, Phil still felt _so much_. He had no idea what Dan was doing.

It wasn’t fair to any of them.

“Dan.” The name is bitter in his mouth. “Dan, I’m so sorry, you can’t-”

“Phil?” Annah chooses this exact moment to insert herself into the conversation, sliding an arm around Phil’s waist protectively, like he would do to her.

They didn’t do this in front of other people. Phil had enough rumours about him that even a toe out of line meant that the whispers would start again. (And the back of his mind gladly conjured scenarios -- the mothers down the street that hug their male children tighter, and their husbands closer. The men who will beat him to within an inch of death in a back alley.) His role and Annah’s were sharply defined, at least in front of other people. Phil had to provide, be the gentleman and offer his arm to Annah.

Blue-stocking, that’s what the men called her. Too smart for her own good. A woman who didn’t know her place.

And Phil? They had plenty more names to give him.

He wonders why she’s acting so brazenly in front of Dan.

“Do I know you?” Annah says, something strange in her voice. Phil knows her well enough to know that she doesn’t mean anything by it. But Dan doesn’t, and he flinches back like she had slammed the door in his face.

“This is Annah,” Phil says to Dan. He closes his eyes for a second, sending a silent prayer skywards. “My wife. And Annah, this is D-”

“James,” Dan interrupts. “Uh, I go by James now.”

Annah smiles, the sunlight hitting her _just_ right, and Phil remembers again that he’s lucky to have her by his side. Then he looks at Dan, and forgets all this when he sees Dan’s carefully blank face.

“A friend of Phil’s?”

“Yes, we were neighbours,” Dan replies, just as Phil says “schoolmates.”

They give each other a look. Dan’s eyes are glimmering now. The wistfulness leaves Phil.

“-schoolmates.” Dan says.

“-neighbours.” Phil says.

Annah huffs out a laugh. “Schoolmates _and_ neighbours?” she says lightly, her version of teasing. “You seem like you used to be close.”

Phil nods. He catches Dan’s eye and for a second, they smile at each other; and suddenly Phil’s reminded of the looks his parents used to exchange that he could never decipher. Even if Dan’s one was tight-lipped and stiff, it was still- well, something.

It was progress. Phil doesn’t think about what kind of progress he wants with Dan. So, he shoots Annah a helpless look.

She creaks the door open as a response. “Well come in, then!” She says brightly. “Any friend of Phil’s is welcome here, you can stay for as long as you want! We have a guest room.”

“Annah-” Phil tries to protest, but she quirks her eyebrows at him and he shuts up immediately.

Dan coughs uncomfortably. “If it’s no trouble, Mrs. Lester.” He says. _He looks like a painted doll_ , Phil thinks to himself, watching the stray curl laying perfectly on Dan’s forehead. _All perfect and institutionalised._ It was a weird thought. It was a strange situation.

Dan lifts the briefcase in his hand slightly, breaking Phil from his train of thoughts. “Uh, should I just-”

Annah takes it from him before he’s even finished speaking. She shoos Dan into the living room. “Go catch up, the two of you. I’ll come back before dinner, soup and bread okay with you?”

“We’re good,” Phil says quickly, before Dan can say a word. Annah gives him another look. _Don’t be rude to Dan. He can stay. It’s fine._

Phil clenches his fist where neither his wife nor Dan could see. She didn’t know their history. The worst was already past when Phil had met Annah. She had picked up clues along the way -- a estranged lover, a broken heart. One that was meant to be hidden and instead, was aired out amongst the neighbourhood like dirty laundry; gossip of the month until Mrs. Dickinson cheated on her husband and gave birth to a baby that obviously wasn’t his.

The people talk, Phil knows. But she didn’t know the way that he loved Dan. She didn’t know about their courtship, she didn’t know _anything_ about how Phil had loved and hurt and gave every last bit of himself to a boy. She didn’t know about Dan’s love of the morning paper and his odd fascination with Phil’s eyes, and she didn’t know anything about the way Phil had scaled the outside of Dan’s father’s mansion just to glimpse Dan one last time.

She wasn’t there when Dan left. If she had, Phil doesn’t think he’d be able to face her; because he was completely broken for years first because of Dan, then because of the war. He had wasted his youth until one of his neighbours sent him to a distant relative as a stopgap for a butler who had gone missing.

He had met Annah there, who was visiting the master of the house. Annah was the perfect escape at the time. She never pried, respecting him enough for that. And Phil didn’t want to break that trust. She was the one to help him build his life back together -- just because he treated her well, didn’t mean that she had to give back even more.

Phil wasn’t mad. He knew that Annah was an angel. But there was something about Dan that made his guard slip and the foundations of his carefully-crafted world break, and Phil didn’t like that.

It was not going to be fine. So Phil, seeing no mind-blowingly simple solution after his spiral of thoughts, goes and puts on the kettle.

Dan’s waiting for him in the next room. Phil can hear the shuffle of his footsteps and the sofa groaning out in protest when Dan sits.

Phil carries the mugs out in a tray, setting the cups on the coffee table. Instead of speaking, he settles down onto the loveseat next to Dan’s armchair, leaning back and closing his eyes. He waits until he hears Annah putting on her coat and closing the door shut gently before opening them.

Dan’s watching him. Of course he is. And Phil hates this stilted silence between them, because it wasn’t supposed to be like this when they reunited.

He wants to try. He doesn’t like it, but Phil wants everything to go back to normal, so he wants to try.

He clears his throat. “Uh- So you go by James now?” He can hear the nervousness in his own voice and grimaces slightly.

“Summer of 1954,” Dan says, unperturbed. “That’s when we met. You called me Dan then, you can call me that now.”

Phil meets his gaze as coolly as he can, hating this calm, collected man. He wants Dan to get angry. He wants to see him rage and love and kiss Phil all over until both of their cheeks are flushed, because that’s the thing Phil loved about Dan- his passion for everything.

“And 1958, on my birthday,” Phil says. “You left.”

“It wasn’t my choice.”

“You could’ve fought harder.”

“Would you have done that?” Dan says, spreading his hands. “You know how my father was. He’s dead now, if you wanted to know. That’s why I came back.”

“It wasn’t enough!” Phil says sharply. “You know, I tried my hardest to find you Dan, but now I’m wondering if you ever wanted me to find you. Because I gave you my _entire_ fucking life, and you left on that stupid train, and sometimes all I can think about at night is the sound of the train whistle and the wind in my hair as you left me behind. You know I used to have nightmares about finding your grave? I searched, _everywhere_ , for decades. I scoured the entire country for you. And you. Weren’t. There.”

Dan visibly deflates at that. “I know you were looking for me. I tried my hardest to hide.”

They lapse back into silence, but only Phil’s emotions are so pent up this time that he’s breathing too heavily to speak. He’s gripping the arm of the loveseat, hard. The space beside him had never felt so empty.

He watches Dan fiddle with the hem of his sleeve as he forces his heart to slow down, trying to relearn as much about Dan without being too loud about it, for fear of breaking the terse silence. It was strangely familiar, in a way, this odd tension between them.

The thing about loving Dan, was that it was all or nothing sometimes. And Phil doesn’t know if he’ll ever leave the stage of wanting all of Dan, the good _and_ bad. Because the teenager that Phil fell in love with wasn’t here anymore, and Phil doesn’t exactly know how to stoke the fire in Dan right now, but something tells him that the embers are still glowing.

Dan’s grown into his gangly limbs and his shirts fit better on his shoulders now, but the fierce kind of wistfulness that Phil had loved so much about him remained.

Phil counts the the differences he can spot. Fingernails no longer bitten down to a stump. Eyes less hollow. Cheeks filled out.

Dan wasn’t a ghost all this time.

And Phil doesn’t know how he wants to feel about that, because for so long, Dan’s been compartalised and locked away and buried under mounds of emotional baggage. For years, even the thought of Dan was nothing but useless, empty hurting. And now he’s here. In front of Phil.

It’s not fair that Dan still affects him so much even after being gone for so long.

Dan seems to read his mind, because he looks like he wants to say _sorry_ a thousand times. Phil braces himself for the apology, wanting nothing but to make Dan familiar under the gentle worship of his hands again.

Dan does none of that.

Unpredictable, that’s what Dan had always been. He gets up and flings himself into Phil’s arms. Phil lets out a gentle _oof_ as this giant, six foot man crash lands onto him.

“Hey,” Phil says weakly. His abdomen is screaming out in pain. “Hi Dan.”

Dan looks at him, parting his lips. And just as sudden as his need for physical intimacy, he buries his head in Phil’s neck and starts sobbing, too soft for Phil to hear but the wetness against Phil’s skin giving him away. Phil cards his fingers through Dan’s hair without thinking, because comforting Dan was muscle memory at this point.

Dan smells different. Phil doesn’t remember how he smells, but the Dan from twenty years ago didn’t use cologne; Phil would’ve remembered if he smelled like the summer breeze.

“Dan,” Phil says softly, worried. “Hey, are you okay?”

Dan sniffs. “Are you angry at me?” He asks in a very small voice.

_Are you angry at me?_

There are so many things that Phil could say. He had pictured this scenario so many times -- Dan running back into his arms and telling him that they could leave the world behind together; but now Phil’s not sure anymore.

It’s different now that Dan’s real.

People are cruel. People judge. They point fingers and tear people apart until Phil’s aching, raw; and it’s been weighing so heavy on Phil’s shoulders lately. The sky is grey, his heart belongs to the man who broke it, and everything’s not as easy as it once was.

Phil hadn’t seen Dan in twenty years. And now that Dan had shown up on his doorstep, bringing back everything like a tsunami that Phil’s drowning in, he feels so overwhelmed that he doesn’t know how to act.

So Phil picks his next words very carefully.

“I lost you once, Dan. And I’m not sure I can stand losing you again.”

“But?” Dan asks.

“Not angry.”

Dan relaxes against Phil at this. Phil’s not smart enough to resist the urge to hold Dan properly, so that’s exactly what he does.

Dan sinks into his arms. They slot into each other perfectly, they’re pressed flush against each other and Phil realises with a sudden lurch in his stomach that this was what he had been missing out on all those years.

Intimacy. Not physical affection, Annah had given him plenty of that, but _this_. With the person that makes his heart soar, makes the world stop going grey for a second.

The world is heavy on his shoulders.

“Phil, I-” Dan starts. “Phil.”

“Yeah?”

A determined expression flits over Dan’s face. He shuffles up a little and props himself up above Phil.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he whispers.

Phil can’t remember how to breathe. Dan’s looking at him with half-lidded eyes, lips pink. The roar of blood to his head is so loud that everything else is drowned, and his entire world was Dan, and maybe this was how it was meant to be, all along.

Phil had just hopped off the train a little too early.

He breathes “okay”, and closes the gap between them.

The first touch of their lips was electric.

Dan still kisses the same, Phil realises with a shock. He presses hard until their teeth clank, but Phil doesn’t mind at all -- this fierce kind of possessiveness is something he hasn’t felt in a long time. Dan’s lips are plump and warm and chapped.

Phil wants to explore every inch of Dan. He wants to follow the veins down Dan’s wrists and kiss every nook and cranny until Phil’s certain he will never ever forget Dan again, because this -- if Phil had remembered what it was like to kiss Dan, he would have never settled down. He would have kept searching, because this _feeling_ that was coursing through him right now could never be replicated. Phil kisses Dan back with the same emotion, trying to say as much of this as he can without words.

Phil finds himself pushing back at Dan, chasing after every breath. It’s a battle, but one that slows and speeds up and drags on for eons.

Phil never wants this to stop. He puts his hands on Dan’s hips and traces the broadness of his back, until his hands are tangled in Dan’s mop of hair - and he pulls, hard, remembering how much Dan used to like it when they went rough at each other. Dan seems to like that. A lot. He trembles against Phil’s body. Phil takes Dan’s bottom lip and sucks it, and Dan lets out a tiny whimper that he probably didn’t mean to let out, because Phil remembers how much Dan had hated sounding out of control when Phil had touched him.

Phil relishes in the heat of the moment. Even after so long, he hasn’t forgotten. _Dan_ hasn’t forgotten.

Dan shifts. Phil tilts his head, giving Dan better access to him, and Dan knows exactly what Phil wants. He starts kissing down Phil’s neck, until he reaches the bottom of Phil’s collarbone. And then he sucks, hard. Phil lets out a startled sound halfway between a moan and a gasp, involuntarily jerking his hips up into Dan’s. The feel of another man’s hardness pushed against his own shocks him back into reality.

Phil springs up, making Dan roll off the sofa.

“Ouch.” Dan mutters.

Phil offers a hand to Dan and pulls him back up. “Sorry?”

Dan pats the dust off him and sits back in the armchair. Dan hadn’t sat on the loveseat -- Phil had thought he might, after that sudden display. He spreads his legs wider and slouches down.

“We should really talk now,” Dan says determinedly, avoiding his gaze.

Phil can see how flushed his face has become- even though Annah wouldn’t be back until suppertime, Phil still doesn’t want to chance it.

He just made out with Dan.

He just _made out_ with Dan. On his couch, where Annah could walk in anytime and catch them in the act. She knows about his past, but she doesn’t know that Dan was the one who had made Phil fall in love over and over again.

Phil doesn’t know if she’ll be as friendly to Dan if she ever finds out.

He’s afraid, because relearning Dan was something that came easy to him, and Phil’s not sure he can stop loving Dan, ever. He’s not ready to let go of him.

“I called myself James because I was afraid that she’d know about us,” Dan blurts out suddenly. “I don’t know anything about you. Wife? Kids?”

Phil holds out his hand. “Hello,” he says. “My name is Philip Michael Lester, and I go by Phil. I have a wife and no kids, and I thought I lost the love of my life years ago and now he’s back in my life.”

“What are you doing?” Dan says.

 _Play along_ , Phil mouths, catching his eye.

Dan rolls his eyes (and Phil feels like they’re back to how they used to be because Dan was so stiff and polite when they first met again that he didn’t feel like _his_ Dan), but he complies anyway. “Daniel James Howell and it’s a pleasure to meet you, _sir_. I had a boyfriend. And then my father found out, and I went to conversion therapy and stayed in a mental asylum until the war was over I didn’t stop running away from my past until my father died.”

Phil leans over and slides a hand onto Dan’s thigh. “I didn’t know that.”

Dan looks at him for a second.

“My father, destroying my relationship between us? Yeah,” Dan mutters. “The truth’s ugly.”

 _Destroyed_.

The word hangs in the air between them. Phil’s suddenly painfully aware of the gaps in their past they can never bridge. He has a wife, for God’s sake. He has a new life here. It would be stupid to throw that all away for a fling.

Instead, Phil chooses to focus on the next best thing. “Conversion therapy?”

Dan goes quiet. Then, he shakes his head mutedly. “I can’t. Not yet, anyway.” He looks at Phil helplessly.

Phil doesn’t know what to say. The part of Phil that still longs for Dan wants to hold him tight, until all of Dan’s pain fades away and the person he used to know comes back, but he knows that it’s impossible. Dan knows pain better than he does, Phil thinks grimly. And Phil loves him in this moment, so much that the waves that crash over him is a shock to his system.

Phil needs to set boundaries, because they will inevitably end up breaking them -- but he can stave himself off.

And yet, when Phil says, “Dan? I can’t give you everything this time”, it feels like he’s making one of the biggest mistakes of his life -- because _of course_ , Dan still manages to push and pull him like the moon controlling the tides. His heart isn’t here.

But Phil isn’t brave, he’s never been. So he takes the coward’s way out; and watches Dan’s face crumple.

“I figured as soon as I saw her.”

“I’m sorry.”

Oddly enough, Dan laughs, a sharp, bitter sound that pierces Phil’s heart. “You? Sorry? I’m the one who left you for twenty years. I don’t know why I thought we’d still know each other.”

“I’ll relearn you,” Phil says. “If you want me to.”  
  
“I’m selfish,” Dan murmurs. “Don’t you know that by now? I’ll creep into your life and stay in your house and kiss you when your wife isn’t looking, because I love you. And I’ll hide us if it meant that I get to stay with you.”  
  
The words echo. A parallel of the past, a younger version of them hanging out of balconies and kissing each other on windowsills and Phil promising that _I’ll stay up a thousand nights for you, if it meant that I get to stay with you_.

Phil swallows. _Annah. Dan._

“Okay,” he breathes out. “But she can never know.”

“You’re as selfish as I am.”

Phil reaches out and cradles Dan’s face. “Only for you, Dan. I’m not going to lose you again, not after I got you.”

“I love you,” Dan says fiercely. “You know that, right? I love you, you know that?”

Phil moves so he’s sitting on Dan’s lap and kisses him again, slower, softer; with none of the urgency that they had the first time. He traces the bottom of Dan’s lips with a thumb, treasuring every single thing that Dan was willing to give him.

“I love you,” he mumbles, pulling away.

Keys jingle from the doorway.

Dan pushes Phil away from him, hard, and Phil stumbles back onto his own loveseat. He reaches for his mug and gulps some liquid down, just so the croakiness of his throat gets washed away.

Annah appears, weighed down with paper bags. “Help me with the groceries, boys.”

Dan springs up a little too quickly. “I’ll do it.”

The image of the perfect gentleman. Phil wonders when Dan learned to lie like that. Dan at eighteen was terrible at keeping a poker face -- he couldn’t, at least, when he was around Phil. But again, a year and half was very little time to fall in love with someone; twenty years, on the other hand, was a long time be away from someone.

“Thanks, love,” Annah says, and bustles about.

That night, over dinner, Phil stares at his wife and then stares at Dan; and wonders how he could possibly survive Dan being here again.  


 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil deals with the aftershocks in the morning.

The whistle of the train somehow gives him deja vu but in a bad way. Somehow, it makes him panicky and light-headed, the rush of blood away from his face making his limbs all tight and uncontrollable. 

_ Ba-dum.  _

There’s something he desperately needs, fingertips away from him. Phil’s straining to reach the furthest he can but he can’t tell what he wants. 

It’s right there.

Someone is on the train. They’re getting far. They’re- too distant. 

_ Ba-dum.  _   


And Phil spends the rest of the night running and running and running, chasing dreams made out of empty air until he’s lost in the woods, with nothing but trail tracks and the ghostly flicker of the fireflies there to guide him. And he spends the rest of the night sitting there, listening to the wail of the train as it draws further away; but his heart wasn’t there with him anymore.    
  
It’s gone with the train.

And Phil’s empty, hollow.

 

*

 

The water’s running when Phil wakes up. 

“Annah?” He calls out, disoriented by the brightness streaming from behind the curtains. There’s a heaviness in his heart that pulls at his hands and drags at his feet until Phil’s drained, even though he had barely woken up.

He was dreaming last night. There was a train in the dark. Phil was running after something. 

Phil breaks into a yawn, and suddenly, he’s too tired to think anymore. But the feeling of being disoriented lingers. He rubs his palm against his face. It must have been the way Dan had shifted in front of Annah, becoming a smooth, polished version of himself that made Phil feel like he was on the sidelines, watching a movie play out. It was surreal. 

The whole thing was surreal. It must have seeped into his dreams. 

The water stops. There’s the sound of someone hitting their hand against the sink and a tiny “ow”, and then unfamiliar footsteps made their way to the door. 

“Good morning.”

Dan has a towel around his waist. Phil drags his lingering gaze away from the bead of water making its way down Dan’s collarbone, but that takes way more effort than Phil would’ve thought for some godforsaken reason. 

Dan’s shameless, Phil thinks grimly, watching Dan prop himself on the doorframe like this was home. 

It somehow fits him. Dan slots into place with all his brazenness in Phil’s mind. Phil had never had- the courage- to imagine Dan here, even though Phil had promised him, twenty years ago, that Dan could always come back. But the way Dan has grown into his skin makes sense.

This was supposed to be  _ home _ for Dan to come back to. But somehow along the way, they both got lost. 

Dan cuts into his thoughts. “Annah made us breakfast before she left.

Phil mumbles a thanks and pulls the covers up so they cover his chest properly. It feels wrong, somehow, to have Dan see him in a bed that Phil sleeps in with another person. A woman. He’s a little freaked out. Now that Annah had left for work -- Phil doesn’t work Mondays, and Annah cleans houses for a living on weekdays -- Phil finally feels the aftermath of the earthquake. He had been restless all night. 

Dan gives him an indecipherable look, hesitating, but he shuffles away before Phil could say anything. 

Phil sighs. He should’ve talked everything out yesterday with Dan so the emotions didn’t trap them, but they- they got distracted. What Dan never had with Phil was space, emotionally, because they had never felt the need to set boundaries until now. Phil’s well aware that they’re treading the line right now. No, they’ve stepped past it; Dan had pulled him by the hand and tugged Phil along until they were both far, far away from what was acceptable. For god’s sake, they were in Phil’s  _ house _ with Phil’s  _ wife _ . Phil needs a talk with Dan, a real one this time. Not just one where Dan fills him in on the bare details of the past couple of years and then kisses him like nothing has changed, but they have to lay out the foundations of their new r-- well, whatever this was supposed to be.

 

*

 

Phil, being the coward he is, stays in bed as long as he can, until Dan stomps to his door and silently hands him a cup of coffee. Phil ignores the fact that Dan had cut his crusts for him, something teenage Dan would never have thought to do, even though it alights something primitive and akin to hunger deep inside him.

He doesn’t talk to Dan at breakfast. 

He doesn’t talk to Dan when they go to the grocer’s together. The grocer - a beefy, red man that has a knack for being too friendly and asking personal questions - talks the whole time they’re there. 

“-and who’s this young lad with you, huh? Handsome boy- your age, Phil, eh? Good looking. Whereabouts are you from? Got a wife? Pretty youngin’ like you, bet you got lots of women hanging off your arm, huh? Look at the pair of you -- so tall, you’re like streetlights!” He roars in laughter. “Bet you I could spot you lads from the next village over. You having a nice day, lads?”

Dan nods, but Phil can see how uncomfortable he is under the attention. So he steps between them under the guise of helping the grocer wrap their purchases. 

“Phil, where is this young man from?” 

“Oh, he’s- he’s my-”

_ My- _

 

_ “What is he to you?”  _

_ Phil presses himself flat against the wall, right in time -- the curtain gets swung open and he glimpses Dan’s maid pouring stale water from a vase into the garden, before she draws back into the room.  _

_ “He-”  _

_ At the sound of Dan’s voice, Phil’s breathing stops. Even now, even when they were so close to being caught- Phil can’t control himself around Dan. There was something that ran under their veins, tugging them together until Phil’s wound around Dan’s lifeline. Dan was his forever, Phil was certain.  _

_ He strains his ears, listening.  _

_ “I’m on your side here,” the voice says. It’s not anyone Phil recognises. “I’ll protect you from him, but I need- your help, here.” _

_ “Nobody,” Dan says, and Phil breathes out.  _

_ He presses a hand against the cold bricks, waiting, waiting, waiting. _

 

Dan looks at Phil, the indifference in his expression masking everything Phil wanted to understand. He tilts his head, imperceptible if Phil hadn’t been watching him.  

“My old schoolmate.” Phil says, not meeting Dan’s eyes, and feels the burns on his body where Dan had touched him. 

He doesn’t reply after that. The feeling of deeply-buried fear doesn’t leave, not until Phil hears the grocer calling from behind them, waving. “Good meeting you!” 

He doesn’t talk to Dan as he silently walks him through the neighbourhood, but from the way his eyes flit about, Phil realises that Dan had never forgotten. Phil had told him everything, stories about every nook and cranny of Phil’s childhood, during the nights Phil had spent hidden in Dan’s bed twenty years ago. 

Somehow, Dan remembers. Phil hovers closer than necessary to Dan for the rest of the walk. He pretends that the brush of their hands was accidental. 

He doesn’t talk to Dan as he busies himself hanging up their coats and clearing the table and this and that, even though Dan’s standing three steps behind him, watching everything that Phil does. Dan just takes all of this in stride. Phil doesn’t understand how Dan could be so complacent and perfect and is just accepting the fact that they weren’t speaking now; and he wishes Dan wasn’t giving him those curious little side glances as they sit on the loveseat -- Dan’s sorting through the things he brought, and Phil’s pretending to read the newspaper but in reality watching Dan, and suddenly he can’t take it anymore and he bursts.

“So!”

Dan hums questioningly, not looking up. Phil tries his best to sound as if he spoke on purpose, instead of his stupid loud mouth running itself again. “We really need to talk.”

Dan purses his lips. “I guess so.” 

Does Dan know what Phil is thinking? Does he know how Phil woke up this morning, arms aching because the right person wasn’t there, like he did for twenty years? Suddenly Phil’s tired. Yesterday had been -- surprising, but bittersweet after the initial shock had worn off. Dan’s welcome was the wrong one. 

Phil was not a family man. He was a man who had half of his head in the clouds, dreaming about ghosts that come back to life. Dreaming about-

 

_ Phil could feel the air tickling his hair with every exhale from Dan. He wanted to laugh. Everything was funnier at night, when things were supposed to be secret.  _

_ He’s hiding in Dan’s bed.  _

 

The memories, that’s what Phil consists of. He dreams in black and white.

Dan wasn’t bright like Annah was. He was smokey grey, seeping into Phil’s lungs and choking him, until all Phil could see was Dan. He was fully immured by it -- light didn’t seep through the smog, and there was no competition. Phil was blind to the colours in his life. Put this situation in front of him a million times, and Phil would choose the thing that made him alive for just as long. 

And now, it was time for him to step up and admit it. 

“You kissed me.” Phil says determinedly. “Yesterday, when you came. Back home.”

“I did.”

“And you are really in love with me.”

Dan stays silent. Then he tilts his chin up and doesn’t make eye contact with Phil, clasping his trembling fingers tight together. “Yes.”

Everything comes rushing in, in that moment. Phil feels so much that he has to close his eyes and breathe -- because he forgets how to with a single word from Dan. 

He doesn’t know why he always ends up here. With Dan. With a love confession. With the impossible blocking them, until Phil’s running, running, running on air just like in his dreams. They’d gone through this before. They had loved desperately; they had hidden and lied for a night in each others’ arms, and Phil had loved Dan brazenly through all that. Dan had never done the same for him. Not until now, not until Phil had decided to be a fool and hide Dan right next to the person he’s hiding him from. 

The world had gone upside-down. The fates hated them. 

Phil has a wife.

“God, we’re so stupid.”

 

_ “I shouldn’t have snuck you into here.” Dan shoves Phil’s shirt into his arms, kicking away the bedsheets. “He’s back. I’m so fucking stupid. Phil, run, please.”  _

 

Run.

Dan ran.

 

Dan laughs bitterly. “I’m the one who should be saying that. I ran away from everything good and I came back expecting things to be the same.”

“I still need you,” Phil says softly. “Is that not enough?”

“It is, but- but- ugh!” Dan twists so he’s facing Phil, the corners of his mouth downturned. “Don’t be like this. You can’t dog ear a book and expect it not to yellow. That’s stupid. I’m still in your life, but we’re -- we’re different now. And now you’re being stubborn.”

“I’m not being anything,” Phil says. He wants this over with. 

“Do you regret it?”

Phil waits. Dan shifts to his other foot, then back again, like he was impatient for the truth to spill out of Phil in ugly red. And finally, when Phil still doesn’t answer, Dan looks him in the eye, and-

“I know you hurt when you see me.” 

Phil swallows nervously, a little taken aback at how brazenly Dan speaks now. Dan had always been- so elusive and flowery in the past, when he spoke, a mirror image of the persona he is being right now. The old money oozed out of his words like how Phil doesn’t understand how people could just  _ tell _ that he was a q- dating Dan, when they were still teenagers. That’s what Phil still knows about him, and Phil is clinging onto the fact that Dan’s mannerisms had somehow gotten more polished, but the boy underneath -- he was there, somewhere, Phil was sure.

“We aren’t the same anymore,” Dan starts, “we began this chapter of our lives at the end, and now I have to dig back into your past. This isn’t what we are, Phil. I promise that we won’t be just this.”

Phil looks at Dan.

“I never apologised for leaving you behind, did I?” Dan continues. “I’m sorry. For never telling you that I was going, anyway. I should’ve told you, I should’ve tried my best to give you some warning at least.”

“It’s in the past.”

“Still doesn’t make it okay. We need to  _ talk _ about this, isn’t that what you wanted?” There’s an edge in Dan’s voice that makes Phil uneasy. 

He hates this.

The way Dan’s voice makes his insides clench just  _ painful _ enough to make him stop breathing for a second, the way Dan’s still toying with him like a cat and a new toy -- no, he doesn’t hate this. He doesn’t hate Dan, either. That’s not the right word for it. 

Every time Phil looks at Dan, he still feels like he’s twenty and on top of the world, but mixed in with all this is some sort of uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was lost in euphoria yesterday - but that dream he had earlier, it feels foreboding enough that Phil feels like he’s trying to balance on a tightrope with Dan as the chasm. 

It wasn’t just closure. Dan was the person who had seen him through the most important parts of his life, and Dan was the person Phil wanted. Needed. The person that Phil had dreamed of his entire life, and Annah - she wasn’t. And yet, Annah was the one who had stayed and put the final jagged piece of the puzzle in place, so that Phil had felt whole again for a while. The way Dan suddenly reappeared didn’t make everything between him and Dan okay again. He hadn’t been here when Phil was broken. 

He was the one who broke Phil.

Deep inside, some selfish part of him  _ resented _ Dan, even though he knew why Dan disappeared like that. There was hurt that built up during all those years of Dan being gone, like a bruise that spread and spread until Phil couldn’t feel anything but shock and want when Dan came back - only because he couldn’t process it. 

And now Dan was back. And making demands. 

Phil opens his mouth. And closes it. He has nothing to say now that Dan was right in front of him. 

“I’ll put the kettle on,” he says instead, watching Dan from the corner of his eye. 

Everything they’re doing is an echo of last night. Phil can feel the impending conversation go in circles. They’re not used to this, talking things through; because the thing that had tied them together -- and pulled them apart, and tugged them back again was desperate fear. Dan had loved him, and Phil had let him. 

Phil had thought that their teenage passion would have lasted through. It had, but now that Phil was older, self-control had taken its place.

Phil can feel Dan’s terse gaze on his back, but he ignores it the best he can until the kettle boils. 

“Sit.” 

Phil pours them each a cup. Tea was good. Tea was familiar. And he feels a little silly, pouring tea for Dan like he was playing host. They had never had the chance to socialise like this in the past. Not ‘til the very end, when Phil was banging on the Howell mansion, begging.

Dan cradles the tea between his hands, blowing the steam away from his face. “I really am sorry, you know. For everything.”

“It’s okay.” The lie slips easily from Phil’s tongue. “I don’t blame you.”

“But you do.”

“I don’t.” Phil takes a gulp - and winces as the too-hot liquid burns him. Always. “Look, Dan, what do you want me to say?”

Dan suddenly slams his cup down. “I want you to be honest with me, for once in your life. We’re not fucking teenagers anymore, notice that? I don’t need you to be a fantasy or an escape. I’m past that. You’re past that. I just need to know where I stand.” He’s heaving by the end of the sentence. 

Phil closes his eyes. He hasn’t seen Dan so unhinged, not since-

 

_ The boy in his arms sobs without abandon, heaving gulps that make his entire body shake. He’s limp by now, curled up on Phil’s lap.  _

_ Dan’s not okay.  _

_ That’s the only thing Phil knows for certain. He can’t tell anyone.  _

_ They were outed. They were fucking outed, by the one person who knew about them- Phil still doesn’t know who it was. The person that they had spent all this time hiding from knows and there was no going back, but they had been so careful since the beginning and even so- there were consequences. Phil is going to be torn apart from Dan, and Dan -- he’s too afraid to go on. They don’t know what’s going to happen, but Phil darts a quick look out of the window and the gloominess of the night tells him that nothing good is going to happen. _

_ Phil just doesn’t have the energy to care about himself anymore.  _

_ His life was Dan. His entire reason for living was Dan. And now the only thing he needed to do is to make sure that Dan was alright, because if Dan goes from his life, Phil doesn’t know how to live anymore.  _

_ “It’s okay,” Phil whispers. He buries his nose into his hair and begs the heavens for forgiveness. “I’m here. You have me forever.”  _

 

He doesn’t want to think about it anymore. They are adults now. 

Phil gets up and crosses his arms defensively, mirroring Dan’s stance. “You really want to do this?” He says. “Okay. Fine. I was absolutely destroyed when you left without a single warning. I was- I was in love-” his voice cracked- “and you just threw away everything we’ve built in secret- it took us four years to get to where we were. You were so elusive and scared- and I just wanted to make you happy. Dan, I poured everything good in me into you. I was just that lower class boy you knew and then you loved me out of everyone you could have chosen- and we had everything we needed then, when I threw stones at your windows and snuck time with you wherever we could. Keeping everything I loved about you a secret was hard, but I would’ve done it in all our lifetimes if it meant that I could love you again, and I thought we would’ve- would’ve made it. And then I was- gone, completely destroyed; I didn’t know how to be happy for the longest time after you left. 

You want me to fill you in? Annah was there when you weren’t, and she was there when the rumours started about me- being a f- a queer. She saved me from a life of being ostracised, you know that?”

“I didn’t know yo-”

“Do you know how stupid I am?” Phil cuts him off. “Even right now, I would give my entire life up if it meant I got all those years back. With you.”

The words hang in the air, invisible threads of bitterness that coil around them and force them apart. Phil puts his arms down just so the movement breaks the thickness, even when the sudden chill makes him want to shiver. There’s something- electric between them, that makes Phil feel exposed and scared and makes the adrenaline rush through him all at the same time.

He wants to kiss Dan so bad. 

The stark thought makes him frightened. It is raw, unrestrained desire that is thrumming inside his veins right now; and Phil doesn’t know if he has the self-control to stay good. If it he wants to stay away.

He’s thinking about  _ everything good _ not enough about the bad. But he knows that. He’s still -- trapped, in a way, by his past. Dan had spun webs around him and Phil was the insect trying to struggle his way out of the clouds. But maybe he doesn’t want to leave. Maybe he wants all the lost years with Phil back. Maybe. 

They were born in the wrong era.

And Phil would do it all again. 

Dan seems to pick up on Phil’s thoughts, because he just looks at Phil wistfully. “I still can’t believe you climbed into my bedroom window like  _ that _ . You could’ve been beaten until you were half-dead, you know. You  _ know _ that.”

“I was in love,” Phil mutters. He doesn’t catch his own words until Dan winces. “Am?”

“No, it’s okay,” Dan whispers, something akin to desperation buried in his voice. “Look. I get it. We don’t talk about things - we tried that once and it didn’t work out, right? We’re fine how we are. But are- can you be honest with me this time? Are you mad?”

“Mad?” Phil says, giving a short laugh. “Angry, I am not. A madman? Only a madman would choose you after all this. And I would.” 

“God, Phil-” Dan murmurs, drawing closer- “Phil, Ph-”

Phil places his hand on Dan’s chest, and gently pushes him away so he can’t come any closer. “Please, Dan. I’m sorry.”

At least Dan has the grace to look abashed. “Sorry.”

This time, Phil takes the opportunity to scrutinise Dan. Dan had traded his three piece for one of Phil’s button-ups today so he doesn’t stand out as much, but his golden wristwatch betrays him. He doesn’t have the smile-lines Annah has. 

He loves Dan so much. 

This had been the constant in his life since Phil was nineteen. He had glued his life back together with the thought that Dan could come home someday, even though the hope had slowly been replaced with bitterness and Phil was ready to believe that Dan was dead by the time he wedded Annah. 

He didn’t want Dan to be the same anymore. He’s afraid that the bittersweetness would linger. Phil had his corners rubbed raw through the years, and if Dan were to slot himself back into his life, Dan would have to change too. 

Dan just stands there with peace in his expression, watching Phil watch him.

Phil doesn’t even realise that he’s counting Dan’s breaths until he reaches a hundred. Two hundred. Three-

“The first time we met, you had flower petals in your hair. And I was- I think I almost crashed into you, and I hopped out just to yell at you. And then you said hello to me.” 

When Phil looks at Dan, Dan’s smile feels oddly forced and out-of-place, like he’s trying to make-believe in a situation where it feels like Dan’s pretending to breathe in air when he was in fact, breathing in water; and this was his replacement of a lifeboat. Dan had tried to use him at first, but they had fallen in love with each other along the way. Phil wonders if Dan still needs a lifeboat, or if he had learnt to swim in the years he was gone, or if-

It doesn’t matter. Phil rakes his eyes across Dan’s face, searching. 

“Your dimple.” Phil says wonderingly. “That’s what made me fall in love with you, the first time.”

“You were kind.” Dan says. “You were so- soft, compared to the boys our age. And your eyes- they were so blue. You said I had dimples the first time we met. I thought that was dumb.”

Phil shakes his head. “Did I? That was dumb, you are right.”

“Why did you talk to me that day? You could’ve- done the thing other boys our age did. Use me for my influence, or not talk to me at all.”

“It was the- rosy patch on your cheek that drew me in,” Phil says hesitantly. He doesn’t want to talk about the past. He just needs to forget and move on, but the nostalgia shrouds them and Phil’s weak for ghosts of the past. “And then there were the little things. Like your hands. And your eloquence, after we’ve seen each other a while.”

“And did you stop?”

“I don’t want to talk about the past anymore, Dan. I just want to heal from it.”

“From the good part, or the bad?” Dan pushes. 

“If I’m being honest, all of it.” Phil admits. “I would run away with you, if I could. But I have a life now, I’m not young and careless and- not frightened, anymore. I’m sorry.”

Dan’s eyes cloud. “I understand.”

“Dan-”

“I ruined it,” Dan says. “At least we talked about it. It’s okay.”

“Okay,” Phil says. 

Dan considers him for a second, then sinks back into the loveseat. “Thank you.”

Phil reaches over, pressing his palm flat against Dan’s upturned hand. He traces the smooth skin. Phil’s hand is calloused. “I don’t want to hide you anymore.”

Dan sighs. “I don’t mind being hidden, Phil. I’m used to it. At least I’m not lonely anymore.”

Phil shifts so he can look at Dan without craning his neck. “You were lonely all those years?”

“I went to conversion therapy, remember?” Dan says, so soft that Phil has to hold his breath to hear him properly. “I was closeted after that. There were women, sure, and I didn’t mind all that much. It just hurt when I slept with someone who reminded me of you.”

“So you never- had another man?”

“No.” 

The answer sends exhilaration rushing through Phil for some reason. He’s selfish. He doesn’t want to share. 

“Tell me about your life in between,” he says instead.

“Well, I inherited all of his money when he died, so now I can do what I want. So I came to find you. I saw sheep on the way here, you know? I thought you would appreciate that. 

I’ve kept your address this whole time, you know, even when I had to go to the facility. I thought you were so, so stupid at the time -- writing it down in the book I was reading, because I just wanted everything over with. But it worked. I kept the book with me and I’d read the address over and over when I missed you until I knew it by heart. Father never knew.

We went back down south for a couple years, and all I remember about that was that was that there was the smell of salt for the longest time until I got used to it. It tasted like tears. And sometimes my eyes would sting, and I would go for walks along the coast and the jagged rocks would look so pretty and I would be thinking about the train ride away from you. There were sheep the next time we moved, but I hated them. I stepped in sheep shit once.

And..”

Phil’s not paying attention anymore. He yawns, snuggling into Dan. Dan’s voice is a low rumble that comforts him. Phil’s eyelids start drooping. Dan’s so warm. That’s the second-best thing about being near him. 

“Are you really going to fall asleep on me like this?” Dan says with a quiet laugh that shakes Phil. Phil bats a limp hand at him.

“Mhm.”

“Go to sleep, Philly.” Dan murmurs, pulling Phil closer. “I’ll talk. You wanna hear about my favourite part about moving?”

Phil rests his head on Dan’s shoulder. He closes his eyes and loses himself to the gentle waves of tiredness crashing over him, lost in the quiet sound of Dan’s voice.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as usual, thanks charlotte (@danhoweiis) for betaing. 
> 
> also. while writing this chapter i was like "i have an ENTIRE prequel planned out" and nokire was like "bitch NO please finish your chapter before you plan out the second part of the series" so in conclusion thank nokire for the existence of this chapter. 
> 
>  
> 
> tumblr: [cheekybumsecks](https://cheekybumsecks.tumblr.com) (or [zhovel](https://zhovel.tumblr.com) if you wanna)
> 
>  
> 
> -
> 
>  
> 
> a/n a year later: so quite obviously this fic is abandoned. what was meant to happen was that dan and phil were going to fall in love, phil was going to struggle with if he should choose dan again after all these years; but they find out annah is sick and about to die and it’s not really a decision, after all. 
> 
> and here is how it was going to end:
> 
>  
> 
> Phil pushes his bedroom door open, heart still buzzing from Dan, and doesn’t even bother hiding the smile on his face as he steps inside. But he stops right in his tracks, because Annah’s sitting on her bed, arms crossed and eyes red. And the look on her face tells Phil exactly what he needs to know.
> 
> Phil turns his head away. “Annah-”
> 
> "He makes you so happy.”
> 
> Phil’s heart finally gives in to the guilt. It pours over him like a dam breaking — not from an earthquake, but from a hand put on it one too many times, the final stepping stone to make it collapse and tumble and fall to ruin. If Annah had said anything other than that — if she had yelled, if she had slapped him and said I should have known, it would have made more sense.
> 
> “Annah?”
> 
> “No, listen,” she closes her book, setting it to the side. “Philip. He makes you so happy. I’ve never seen you alive like that, and why should I take that away from you?”
> 
> -
> 
> “It would’ve been you,” Phil replies— they’re both crying now, huddled close together. “If he never came back, it would’ve been you.” 
> 
> “I love you so much,” Annah says, reaching over and stroking Phil’s face, scratchy from his morning shave. “Please be happy when I’m gone, okay?”
> 
> Phil manages to nod without his mask breaking, and holds his dying wife next to the dying embers of their marriage.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to charlotte (@danhoweiis) for betaing!
> 
> anyway this is part one of a series. you'll see!! i hope you got hooked on the story. fun fact: i wrote this halfway through a levels because that's what happens when a nerd (me) falls in love with a text (streetcar) and goes "hm maybe i can make this into an au". 
> 
> twitter: [danclipse](https://twitter.com/danclipse)  
> tumblr: [cheekybumsecks](https://cheekybumsecks.tumblr.com) (or [zhovel](https://zhovel.tumblr.com) if you wanna)
> 
>  
> 
> [reblog on tumblr!](https://cheekybumsecks.tumblr.com/post/184939722981/little-piece-of-eternity)


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